“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God” (Romans 12:1)
Whenever St. Paul uses the word therefore, he is often indicating that this is a transition point. What went before is his teaching. He wants the reader to understand something about the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this case, it is the mercy of the loving God as expressed in the history of salvation through Israel, and now offered to the Gentiles. Then the apostle to the Gentiles draws the conclusions from what he had explained. He wants us to put into practice the theory of redemption in Christ.
He is making an assumption. Sensible people will do more than merely learn what it takes to be united with God, because that’s what is meant by salvation and redemption. They will apply what they heard or read to their own lives. They base their actions on their beliefs. Everybody does it. Humanists whose God is themselves have little interest outside of themselves. They diet for health and exercise for appearances. They neither fast nor pray—to whom? For what? They are “conformed to the world.” Don’t be like them. When they die, they could care less what happens to their corpses. Life is ended for them.
You are urged to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” It doesn’t matter much what your body looks like—it is the living temple of the Holy Spirit. In you the Spirit of God dwells, waiting for you to open yourself to Him so that the Spirit may guide you in following Christ to the Father’s kingdom. The Holy Trinity is less concerned with what you have, than what you are. The only sacrifice acceptable to God is “a broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17). Not proud and haughty, but humble and gentle.
He tells you that you must “renew your mind.” Old prejudices, lingering anger, promises to pray more, attend services without fail while enjoying all the temptations that society places before you must be eradicated once and forever. If you are not transformed, you’ll never know what God’s will is for you. You will go on limping through life not happy with the ways of the world, yet never brave enough to change the old thinking. You cannot pour new wine into old leather pouches, Christ Himself cautioned. Worse, you will go on justifying the way you are rather than making the effort to change.
You will lose the ability to discern what is true and holy from what is false and vulgar. You will understand and explain the rationale for what is sinful and indecent, the stench of tastelessness that permeates our so-called culture. What was clearly either black or white for you in childhood has become an inchoate miasma of varying shades of gray. You don’t know the difference, but what’s the difference?
Read once again the bold words of St. Paul. The implications are self-evident. If you lift up to God the Lord’s Prayer, what does it mean: Thy will be done, if you cannot discern His will from your own? How can the word “Father” have any meaning, if you live the life of the prodigal? To be “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” is to be set apart for something special. That’s holiness. To be a living sacrifice is to make a constant offering of all that is in you, all that you are, to the loving Lord.